


broken open shell

by Areiton



Series: Bad Things Happen [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Character Study, Graphic injuries, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Sam Wilson's Assassin World Tour, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: In Bangkok, he catches sight of a metal arm, gleaming in the neon bright darkness.In Tokyo, he screams himself awake three nights straight.In Helsinki, he finds chocolates on the pillow next to his.





	broken open shell

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for @BadThingsBingo, Reopening an Old Wound. 
> 
> There is brief suicidal ideation and general unhealthy mental states.

When the Winter Soldier rips him from the sky, it rips open something in him. 

He doesn’t realize it, not then, not for weeks, months, later, when he’s shaking on a balcony in Minsk, bile bitter on his tongue and screams echoing in his ears. 

He feels like he’s falling, still. 

He feels like he’s  _ been _ falling, since Riley died and he screamed and did nothing to stop it. 

He shakes and smokes, and can feel eyes on him, in the darkness. 

Sam flicks the cigarette into the empty dark, and flips the Winter Soldier the bird and goes back to his cold empty bed to wait until morning. 

~*~ 

The truth that Sam doesn’t like to think about, that he avoids except when the silence is too loud to ignore--is he’s broken. 

He does the peer counseling that the VA expects of him, talks a damn good game--but watching Riley die shattered him, scooped out the best parts of him and left him a broken open shell. He can’t help people, not really--can only talk a damn good game and hope that no one is hurt in the process. 

Steve doesn’t see through him--he thinks maybe because Steve is the best man he knows, will ever know. He doesn’t think to look for the cracks in Sam. 

Maybe, though, it’s because Steve is so busy hiding the shattered webbing of his own self together. 

Either way--he doesn’t see. 

He sees the VA counselor, the war hero, the friend who lived and picked up the baggage, who came through the other side. 

Sam thinks--that’s not what happened. 

What happened is--he went through something. 

He’s still going through it. There is no  _ getting over  _ something, someone, like Riley. There is only learning to live with what happened. 

He thinks, sometimes, Barnes maybe understands that. 

~*~

He chases the Soldier. 

He chases the Ghost

He tells himself, he’s chasing Steve’s past and not running from his own. 

~*~

In Bangkok, he catches sight of a metal arm, gleaming in the neon bright darkness. 

In Tokyo, he screams himself awake three nights straight. 

In Helsinki, he finds chocolates on the pillow next to his. 

In Rio, he finds a note when he comes back from running along the water for hours, when he’s run so long and far that he can’t hear anything but the thud of his own heart--not his wings shredding or Riley’s or the screams that never quite go silent. 

~*~

Sam doesn’t tell Steve about the Soldier’s little gifts, the way he can count on the warm weight of his gaze on nights when sleep won’t come and concerned, rude notes telling him to fucking eat because he ain’t actually a bird. 

He doesn’t tell him about the nightmares, either, about the way he feels raw and exposed and one bad night away from imploding, a dangerous vulnerability he hasn’t felt since he first got home, when his baby sister sat in his bedroom every night for a month before she trusted him alone. 

He doesn’t tell Steve anything. 

It’s easier, he thinks. 

~*~ 

“I’m not special,” he tells the night, the Soldier, where he waits in the silence, “All of us from the Sandbox--we’re walking wounded, and no one sees it. I ain’t special--I should be able to live with this.”

He doesn’t say that he isn’t. 

He doesn’t have to. 

~*~

The thing is. 

The thing is--everyone sees the smile and they believe it. They see Steve’s strength and believe it. They see Nat’s cool calm and believe it. 

They see the surface and it’s so damn easy to believe--and anything else, it’s  _ hard.  _

Sam cleans his gun and wonders what he’d do, if someone saw him. 

~*~

It goes to hell in Tripoli. He’s exhausted, and probably had too much to drink, and has no actual idea where the fuck the Soldier is, and less desire to find out. He’s chasing a lead from Nat that he doesn’t think will turn up shit. Winter went to ground back in Oran and Sam doesn’t have much faith that he’s going to turn up this close to the last Hydra base he burnt out. 

Then he gets shot. 

As he goes down in a rush of burning metal and spinning blue sky and scarlet blood, he thinks--this isn’t how it’s supposed to end.

~*~ 

He wakes up in pain, screaming, and a leather clad hand is pressed against his mouth, silencing him. It’s bloody and Sam would gag, if he weren’t in so much fucking  _ pain.  _ He can see the cloud spotted sky above and shaggy hair and eyes. 

It’s the first time he’s seen Winter close enough to see the exact shade of his eyes, and he’s absurdly glad that if he’s going to die, he got to see those ice storm gray eyes first. 

“You’re not gonna die,” Winter says, and Sam almost laughs at how petulant he sounds, before the pain rips through him again and he blacks out. 

~*~ 

The bed is hard. 

It’s lumpy and smells like mold and vomit, and it’s disturbing just how reassuring the discomfort is. 

He squirms and a metal hand clamps down on his hip, holding him still. “You’ll rip your stitches,” Winter rumbles. 

“Gonna get an infection from this damn bed,” Sam says, and Winter huffs. He watches the Soldier move through the room, cleaning up the bandages and blood soaked towels, shoving them in a bag. He moves with a brisk efficiency, but Sam gets the feeling that even when the Soldier isn’t focused on him--his attention never does leave Sam. 

It’s disconcerting and reassuring, all at once, and he feels like they’re in a nameless city, separated by darkness, Sam on the balcony smoking, Winter watching through his scope. 

It’s a familiar feeling. 

“What happened?” Sam asks, eventually. 

“You were shot,” Winter says. “Through and through, shoulder. I cleaned and stitched you up.” 

“Who shot me?” 

“Hydra,” Winter says, simply. Then, “They’re dead now.” 

Sam blinks. 

Blinks again. 

“You  _ killed _ them?” 

Winter gives him a curious, almost blank stare. “Yes. They shot you.” 

“Bucky--” Sam starts and Winter skitters back a step. Wary distrust crosses his face, and he dumps a bag on the nasty bed next to Sam. 

Then, without a word, he’s gone. 

~*~ 

The flop house Winter was using as a safe house is infested with roaches and rats, and Sam is close enough to suicidal to be worried about himself--but not so close he’ll stay. He calls Natasha for an extract and gets ready to deal with Steve’s worried questions. 

~*~ 

He can always tell when he’s close to Winter, because the air feels thicker--heavier, occupied, like they’re sharing space even when they aren’t together. 

He misses that feeling, in DC, in his little house that never felt like home, and he misses it when he lets his demons chase him from there to his Mama’s in Harlem. 

It’s safer there, and she feeds him up real good too, and he feels as close to whole as he has since before Riley fell, when he finally gets word that the Soldier raided a Hydra safe house in Paris, and he hops on a plane to France. 

~*~ 

He doesn’t scream, on the passenger jet filled with newlyweds and tourists. 

He does go to the bathroom and have a panic attack so bad he loses a little bit of time, somewhere over the Atlantic, wrapped up in the fear of falling, and the fear that maybe this time, he won’t fall. 

~*~ 

He chases the Soldier. 

He chases the Ghost. 

He chases  _ BarnesJamesBucky.  _

He chases because he doesn’t know how to stop or what he’ll do when he does. 

~*~ 

In Capetown, he gets into a scuffle with Crossbones and his crew, and it rips open the still healing bullet. Not so bad that it takes Sam out of the fight, but enough that Rumlow punches him twice and is going for a third when a metal hand clamps down on his wrist. 

Winter shoots Crossbones’ men without ever looking at Sam or Rumlow, then drags his gaze, cold and remote behind his mask, to Rumlow. 

“Don’t,” Sam chokes, when the muzzle, hot enough that Rumlow flinches back, presses against his temple. 

Ice storm eyes tip toward him, and he huffs. 

He shoots out Rumlow’s knees, and then hefts Sam to his feet, dragging him god knows where. 

“I got a hotel,” Sam interjects. 

Winter hesitates, and Sam huffs. “You aren’t takin’ me to one of your crack house flops, Barnes, I will bleed out in the street first.” 

Winter growls, but obediently turns them toward the hotel Sam’s been staying in. 

~*~ 

Winter is surprisingly gentle as he strips Sam out of his shirt and prods the bullet hole that’s bleeding, a sluggish ooze. 

“Man, that’s gross,” Sam grumbles. “Wash your damn hands.” 

He does, obediently, and then comes back, almost straddling Sam as he readies a needle and thread to stitch him closed. 

Sam tips his head back, not willing to watch. The sick stab and  _ tug _ is bad enough, watching would make him puke all over Winter’s tac gear. 

“Why’d you step in?” Sam asks, because he can’t handle the sensation of Winter warm in his lap and the stomach turning nausea of the needle in his skin, and he’s tired enough that it slips out. 

Things like this are saved for the silent empty spaces of night and never answered. 

“They hurt you,” Winter says, and his eyes flick to Sam’s for a moment. “I don’t like people touching what’s mine.” 

Sam turns that in his head and Winter finishes stitching him up. 

~*~ 

He puts his hands on Winter’s waist, when he finishes. Holds him there, and Winter--he lets him. 

“Am I yours?” Sam asks. 

The thing is--

He’s broken. 

A shattered thing scraped raw by war and death and almost dying. 

He isn’t safe for anyone, not even himself. 

And no one,  _ no one _ sees the walking wounded, no one sees the ripped up parts of him, no one sees him bleeding out. 

Winter--Winter sees him. 

Maybe because Winter is just as shattered, just as broken, just as damaged and dangerous. More so, after the shit he’s lived through. 

They aren’t good for each other, aren’t  _ healthy  _ or  _ whole _ . 

But Winter is warm and solid and he licks Sam's cock and groans when Sam tugs on his hair, he’s gentle when he fingers Sam open, and smiles when Sam snarls and fucks down on his fingers, and when Sam rides him, his hands are big and hot and protective on his skin. 

He sees himself, all the fractured sharp edges and bleeding wounds, reflected in Winter’s eyes, and he sobs, a little, when he comes, and Winter licks away his tears. 

~*~ 

He wakes up screaming, caught in blankets and falling from the sky and Riley shattered on the desert floor. 

He wakes up alone, screaming, in sheets that smell like sex, and come sticky on his ass and thighs. 

He closes his eyes and breathes. 

Steps out on the balcony, into the sights of an assassin, a cigarette dangling from his lips and smokes, and wonders how broken it makes him, that he feels safe in Winter’s crosshairs. 


End file.
